


No Reservation

by oxfordlunch



Series: Quickest Way to a Man's Heart [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Christmas, Closeted Character, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Bantering, Established Relationship, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Richie Tozier's Internalized Homophobia, surprise visit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordlunch/pseuds/oxfordlunch
Summary: So yeah, Richie's a little unsure.  He’s got a key to Eddie’s tiny studio in Brooklyn burning a fucking hole in his pocket, and it should feel like an engraved invitation.  People don’t hand out keys to fuck buddies.  Or side pieces.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Quickest Way to a Man's Heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658176
Comments: 79
Kudos: 823





	No Reservation

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, it's a Christmas fic. In March. I really did mean to post this in December but, you know. Things happen.
> 
> Please do read Table for One before this fic, it'll make a lot more sense that way. Being that this is a sequel.
> 
> Biggest thanks ever to scullyseviltwin for the immense amount of support, cheerleading, and listening to me bitch about this one for like four months.
> 
> Some minor content warnings for Richie using some homophobic language with regard to himself and for Eddie and Richie generally being maybe not the most sensitive to homophobic/offensive word choices.

Richie tips the ever-loving shit out of the young, santa-hatted barista at the LAX Starbucks.

It’s not that he’s ever been a _bad_ tipper. Like anyone who tended bar in their twenties, he tends to be pretty generous about it as a rule. What’s five bucks gonna do to his bottom line, anyway? Lately, though, he’s been catching himself handing out bills like he’s George Bailey at a bank run, and he knows exactly who’s to blame for that.

The service industry is a catching disease, see, one Eddie succumbed to decades ago, and that means Richie is more-or-less in it now, too. Fridays and Saturdays mean something a little different in the Industry. Holidays.

Like today, it’s Christmas Eve and the restaurant is booked solid because Eddie is not nearly big-time enough to turn down that many tables (no matter how much Richie talks his food up to literally anyone who will listen), and that’s just about all Richie can think about. Eddie and the 16-hour shift he has ahead of him.

The tipping, he can’t help. He takes one look at his barista’s harried face, thinks _oh, girl, I know_ and tries not to look creepy while he’s at it, which he knows is sometimes a long-shot for him with his dumb glasses and his general scruffiness. He takes his eggnog latte, pops the lid off so it’ll cool off faster, and scrubs whipped cream off the end of his nose after he burns his tongue on the first sip.

Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.

They decided to spend Christmas apart, is the thing. Richie has a lot of stages to get on this time of year, Eddie’s so busy he barely has time to talk on the phone, and it had just seemed easier to skip trying to get together. Or so Eddie had reluctantly insisted, his voice over the phone sounding like it did when he was trying to convince Richie of something that he didn’t even believe himself, like the merits of kale.

Richie takes another sip too quickly and burns himself again, partly because he’s a dumbass and partly because he’s just plain distracted, which, while it isn’t an _unusual_ frame of mind for him to be in, isn’t a particularly helpful one to be in when he’s trying to navigate the crowd of people in the terminal and get back to his departure gate.

He’s pretty sure there’s whipped cream on his glasses. Things are looking pretty smudgy down near the bottom of the right-hand frame.

No point in stopping to clean them. He’s movin’, he’s shakin’, he’s not stopping to think about any of this, not stopping to clean up any of his messes. He’s got a boarding pass for JetBlue flight number 724, nonstop to JFK, and if he stops to think about that, he’ll waffle on it. Chicken out.

And all _that_ train of thought does is remind him of that time Eddie took him up to Harlem for brunch, and of Eddie sitting across the table and absently sucking buttery syrup and hot sauce off his calloused thumb.

Eddie’s hot. Eddie is so hot, hot sauce has got nothing on him, he’s hotter than this fucking latte Richie keeps burning himself on, he’s absolutely smoking, and Richie has spent the last six months living in a state of unbridled longing that would rival the world’s hungriest dog looking in on a butcher’s shop.

His phone is out of his pocket and in his hand before he can think twice. Eddie’s name lives at the top of his list of text conversations. Just Eddie, no ‘Chef’, no last name, no ‘K’, no emoji, no punchline. Richie has always liked how it looks on his screen. Simple. He doesn’t dare think of it as intimate, but that’s the feeling it inspires in him all the same. Like Eddie’s just for him, not for fans or the media or anyone else. The Hobbes to his Calvin, only like… sexier and definitely inappropriate for children.

Setting his drink down on the counter outside a Subway, he takes his phone in both hands and taps out _im hungry 4 ur *hotdog emoji*_ \--send.

He scrolls back up and re-reads their exchange from earlier that morning because he can’t help himself, even though he’s practically got it memorized.

_Eddie_  
captain’s log, day 6,789,123: people still dont know how to FUCKING DRIVE

 _Me_  
morning to u 2 grumplestiltskin 

_Me_  
ur adorable pre coffee

 _Eddie_  
oh buddy this is me three cups deep

 _Me_  
how goes prep 4 baby jesus birthday party?

Eddie’s response to that was a picture of what used to be a pomegranate, lobotomized and spilling seedy red guts all over a cutting board with a chef’s knife stabbed point-down through it like the moon landing flag, one of Eddie’s deft little hands clutching the handle and red juice dripping all the way down to where the _mise en place_ tattoo on his right forearm starts.

_Me_  
festive!

 _Me_  
godspeed killer knock em dead

 _Eddie_  
someone’s gonna end up dead alright

He can’t help the stupid grin that pulls at his face.

Cramming his phone back in his pocket, he picks his drink back up and walks on, eventually wandering back to the right gate again and slumping down in one of the connected chairs, plunking his carry-on down in the seat next to him.

This thing they have going, this cross-country, couple-days-here, couple-days-there thing, it’s good. It’s really good. It’s so good Richie thinks he might die if they have to keep it up, because the days that aren’t here or there have just become fucking torture instead.

Richie’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he, pathetically, lights up like a Christmas tree that someone just plugged in. He almost drops it, he’s so consumed with frantic grabbiness.

_Eddie_  
[image attached]

Richie blinks.

Oh, no way.

He taps the photo, glancing shiftily around as it loads, making sure nobody is able to see the screen over his shoulder, hands suddenly clammy and his head buzzing with anticipation.

The picture finishes loading, and it’s a dimly lit shot of what looks like several long ropes of sausage hanging in a walk-in cooler.

His phone buzzes in his hand.

_Eddie_  
my kielbasa DOES bring all the boys to the yard

Richie blinks, and then snorts, and then laughs out loud, absolutely startled by it, taken off his guard. Eddie’s fucking wonderful. He’s outstanding. He’s easily the funniest person Richie knows, and his chest aches inexplicably as he sits there smiling at his phone like a total dope.

_Me_  
HOT

 _Me_  
miss ur kielbasa eds

His phone stays quiet after that. It’s alright. He knows Eddie’s busy as hell. He shoves it back into his pocket with only a little twinge of disappointment.

Sitting still, with nothing to distract him but his lukewarm latte, the unsurety sets in the way night used to back home at this time of year. The old 4PM Maine sunset special, dark and cold and damp with all the dead leaves that hadn’t quite rotted away. Shitty time of year, too cold to be out wandering the neighborhood by himself, too dark to do much of anything even if he had been outside. Richie spent five long months every year holed up with his best friend, Nintendo, and a few years later, his own right hand and a stack of magazines he got off some older guy he met hanging around outside the Falcon. There was fuck all else to do and certainly nobody to talk to.

So yeah, he’s a little unsure. He’s got a key to Eddie’s tiny studio in Brooklyn burning a fucking hole in his pocket, and it should feel like an engraved invitation. People don’t hand out keys to fuck buddies. Or side pieces. Or people they don’t actively want to be able to enter their apartment.

Richie just can’t shake the feeling of turning his house key in the lock back home and shuffling into the kitchen in his wet, slushy sneakers and having his mom look at him over her Woman’s Day with an expression that said she was just a little bit surprised to see him.

\----

JFK is a _delight_.

One would think being six-foot-one and broad-ish would mean people might give you a little wider berth, but apparently that’s not the case. He wishes Eddie were here. Eddie’s feisty. Eddie doesn’t put up with people shoving past him; he snaps and snarls like a tiny dog that just had its paw stepped on, all the anxious energy he totes around with him distilled into one obnoxious “Hey, watch where the _fuck_ you’re going, dickbag--”

It’s cute. Richie’s a big fan.

Eddie would have muscled right up to the baggage carousel, too, and they’d be bags-in-hand waltzing out the slidey airport doors by now. Instead, Richie is just hovering, tired and feeling gross from the flight and wishing the crowd would open up a little so he could actually find his other bag and be on his way.

A sudden hand on his arm sends his heart rate into the stratosphere and he jerks his arm away from the touch, feeling like he just jumped clear out of his skin and is now just standing there all fleshy and naked. Meat from Mortal Kombat or something.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Random Lady says, not sounding all that sorry. Her accent is pure Long Island and so is her entire velour getup.

“No problemo,” Richie says, still breathy with nerves.

“I was just wondering, are you Richie Tozier?”

He grimaces and tries to hide it. He thinks about saying no. He wishes Eddie were here again because Eddie _would_ say no, like it was the easiest lie he ever told, and tell the lady to get lost. At least Richie can picture him doing that, in his head.

And then he shakes his head and flips his grimace into a fake-ish smile and berates himself a little. Like, Jesus, dude, cool it, or next thing you know you’ll be picturing him in a fucking suit of armor instead of a chef’s coat. With your shitty ugly shirt tied around his arm.

“The comedian,” the lady clarifies, as if there are multiple semi-famous Richie Toziers running around.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I knew it! Oh, my husband loves you, he saw your show last time you were in the city.”

“Cool,” Richie says. Run, lady, he thinks. Run away fast. Divorce _is_ an option.

“He’s always watching clips on YouTube. He just thinks you’re so funny.”

Richie shakes his head, feigning disappointment. “What’s a guy gotta do to get people to take him seriously? I rap about real issues.”

The lady laughs like she didn’t actually get his dumb joke, pawing at his arm again with her fake nails. “I swear, he’s got like a little man crush on you!” She looks him up and down and he swallows. Oh, god, so uncomfortable. “You’re cuter in person. Look at those _shoulders_ , hel- _lo_ \--”

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

And again. A call, not a text, oh thank _fuck_ \--

He dives into his pocket for his phone and pulls it out so fast he fumbles it and has to gather it into his chest to avoid dropping it. It buzzes again. He’s thinking it’s his manager, maybe. Or his dealer.

When he can finally get a look at the screen, though, it’s Eddie’s caller ID picture flipping him off, shit-eating-grin shining out of the still image of his stupid, adorable eyes.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, already swiping his thumb across the screen to answer it. “I’m so sorry, I gotta take this, sorry…” He jogs rather than walks away, not stopping to hear anything else the lady says, not wanting to hear anything other than--

“Rich? You gotta come bail me out.”

“Dude, what? What the fuck happened, where are you--”

“I’m fucking with you, relax. I haven’t assaulted anyone. Yet. We don’t have any tables yet. The night is young.”

“Don’t kill any customers, Eds, the Michelin star people hate that.”

Eddie laughs.

Richie finds a nice little spot against the airport wall to lean on, smiling as he presses his phone against his sweaty ear. “Hey, I believe in you, buddy. I know the Pixar rat is like, tough competition, but you’ll get a star someday too.”

Eddie laughs again, an amused “Fuck you” hidden somewhere inside it. Richie can hear him adjust his phone and say something to someone on his end that sounds something like “potatoes.”

“You saved me, man. My hero.” Richie says. “Some Long Island broad was just hitting on me, fucking horrifying. The nails--” He shudders.

“Oh, Jesus, one found you all the way over in fuckin’ LA? Are they flying west for the winter now?”

Whoops. “Uh, yeah.” His stomach flips nervously. He’s a fucking dumbass. “Sir Edward to the rescue with the clutch phone call, though.”

“Brave, brave, _brave_ , brave, Sir Edward…” Eddie sings under his breath, his best little-kid giggle underlying it.

“You can tilt at my windmill any day, babe,” Richie murmurs into the receiver. Fuck yeah, he thinks. I’ll tie my ugly shirt around your arm.

“Oh yeah?” Eddie says, voice low. “Fuck, no, hang on. Kyaw! No, I’m not done with that yet. Not done with… No, I still need that. I’ll bring it to the dish pit when I’m done and you can wash it, ok? Ok. Thank you, man. You’re doing a great job today.” Eddie’s voice comes back louder and clearer. “I have gotta learn some fuckin’ Burmese.”

Richie smiles, feeling all kinds of warm inside his chest. “How’s it going over there, Chef?”

Eddie sighs, breath crackling into the receiver. “Everything hurts and I wanna go to bed. But it’s going well, actually. No major fuck-ups. I’m taking a break.”

Richie smiles even bigger. “Oh, reaaally?”

“Yeah because certain people who don’t know what they’re talking about seem to think I should take more breaks.”

“Certain people sound very wise,” Richie agrees happily.

“Where are you, anyway?” Eddie asks. “It’s noisy as fuck on your end, sounds like you’re at the fuckin’ circus.”

“Okay, first of all, do you know me but not at all, Edward?”

“Really? Not even the ones the Shriners put on that benefit all the adorable kids in those commercials that make you cry?”

“Hey, I sent them a _very_ generous check-- Man, if they really wanted people to come support that shit, they’d get rid of all the scary-ass clowns!”

Eddie giggles on the other end of the line, muttering something that sounds a lot like “ass-clowns.”

“ _Second of all_ , I’m at the, uh. Mall. You know me, Mr. Last Minute.”

The airport chooses that exact moment to make an extremely noisy announcement over the loudspeaker and Richie winces and quickly slaps a hand over the receiver. He almost ends the call on accident.

“The fuck was that?” Eddie laughs.

“It’s _Santa_ , Eddie, he’s really here, can you believe it? Of all the malls…”

“That crusty-fuck old fairy never brought me anything good,” Eddie mutters.

“Want me to beat him up for you?”

Eddie snorts. “Okay, Charlie Day. Go nuts.”

Richie can see his other bag finally, going round and round on the now nearly-empty baggage carousel, so he pushes off from the wall and heads that way. “Hey Eds,” he says quietly. “Maybe if you’re really good, a different crusty-fuck old fairy’ll bring you something fun for Christmas this year.”

Before Eddie can respond to that, someone on his end calls “ _Hey, Chef?!_ ” and Eddie breathes heavily into the phone. “I gotta go, Rich.”

He sounds tired. Richie’s heart aches a little. He hefts his other bag off the carousel and sets it on the ground, trying to think of something to say.

“Alright, dude, no worries,” he offers. I miss you, he thinks, really really loudly, like he could make Eddie know that without actually saying the words. I miss you, and other stuff. Other words. “Go feed the masses.”

“Yeah, I’ll-- Can I call you later?”

“You know it, handsome,” Richie murmurs, careful to make sure nobody is overhearing him.

He can’t even bring himself to break the tension with a joke.

“Okay. Alright,” Eddie says, like he’s gearing up for something. He’s silent for a long moment.

“Merry Christmas, Rich,” he says finally, and then he hangs up.

Richie stares at his phone for a second. It feels like looking at something dead, like whatever soul it had has flown the coop, still and quiet.

He swallows, gets himself together, and taps open Uber to call himself a ride.

\----

The drive to Williamsburg is a little harrowing, snow suddenly falling hard and blanket-thick over the roads in a way that clearly tests his Uber driver’s abilities. Eddie’s not kidding when he bitches about the winter driving skills of the average New Yorker, apparently. The holy shit handle next to Richie’s head gets a workout.

It’s a weird fucking twist of fate that both him and Eddie happen to be Mainers, born and bred, but there’s sure something extra comforting about being so much on the same page about little things like confidently navigating a street full of snow and the importance of owning at least one hat with ear flaps.

The front door of Eddie’s studio is one of the only ones on his floor that isn’t framed by a wreath, footed by a welcome mat, or otherwise made personal in some way. His neighbors on either side have tacky Dollar Tree Christmas shit hanging on their front doors; Eddie’s just has a coppery and flaking number ‘7L.’

It would be weird if he had the tacky Christmas shit, Richie thinks. He also thinks, you work way too much, you hyper little nutcase.

Before he can think about it too much, he digs around in his pocket for Eddie’s key and wiggles it into the lock. It clicks and turns easily and just like that, he’s tracking snow all over Eddie’s worn wooden floor, still puffing a little because it’s just like Eddie to decide he should live in a fucking walkup.

He flips the lights on and dumps all of his stuff on the floor.

Surprisingly, it feels almost nothing like committing a B&E. Looking around at the close, familiar, Eddie-flavored space, it feels a whole lot like coming home in a way that Richie’s not sure he’s ever experienced in his life. It’s a little scary, how much it doesn’t feel like he’s breaking any rules.

He hunkers down on the bed to catch his breath, suddenly feeling fuck-off exhausted from all the travel, and lets himself get used to being here again.

It’s a very white apartment, and not in the way that its tenant is a somewhat waxy-skinned Polack. The walls, the painted radiators, the Venetian blinds, they’re all as crispy white as the chef’s jackets Eddie irons and starches himself that are hanging all in a row from a laundry line strung across the ceiling like a festive string of scissor-cut snowflakes. The floors and trim are all natural wood, though, light and oaky, and it cuts all the white and keeps the place from looking like a cheap new build. If Richie was the type of gay guy who didn’t know absolute dick about interior design, he might call it shabby chic.

There’s a bay window that overlooks the street and a breakfast table crammed underneath it, two chairs that rarely get used, some sort of herb in a pot that’s going absolutely hog-wild and needs a haircut badly. The bed that takes up most of the rest of the room is neatly made, the box spring sitting directly on the floor, under-the-bed-storage be damned.

It’d be pretty obvious to anyone that whoever lives here doesn’t spend a whole lot of time at home, but the few personal items that are there make Richie’s chest feel tight to look at. Little pieces of Eddie scattered around like finishing salt or fresh herbs over one of his plates.

There’s a pair of dark jeans drying on the radiator, a canister of orange-scented Clorox wipes left out on the bedside table next to a spare inhaler and a neat stack of marked-up cookbooks, _The Noma Guide to Fermentation_ , _Larousse Gastronomique_ , a frighteningly bloodstained and ragged copy of something called _Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork: A Photographic Guide_ , which--

Richie’s _seen_ Eddie “break a hog,” okay, with nothing but a skinny, bendy knife and a hacksaw, and wasn’t sure if it made him want to throw up or jump Eddie right then and there, nevermind the bloody hands and apron, _you can break my hog, Chef_ , Jesus, Mary, and _Joseph_.

There are more cookbooks in the separate kitchen, an overflowing shelf of them next to a six-hundred-dollar Vitamix blender and a ten-dollar cheapo, dorm-room-model coffee pot. The duality of Eddie. He has all kinds of nice, expensive stuff mixed right in with all the commercial-use-only cookware and kitchen bullshit that has very obviously all been lifted from various jobs he’s had. Piles of the kind of linen-service kitchen towels Richie remembers from his bartending days, restaurant-size spice containers with seven-eighths of their contents missing, burnt rubber spatulas and a billion identical pairs of super-springy tongs. Richie knows for a fact there are enough goddamn knives hoarded away in there to outfit an army made up entirely of Chucky dolls.

Richie remembers the first time he was ever here, poking around with frantic, nervous butterflies having a party in his stomach and half a hard-on in his pants, picking up a saucepan that had clearly been rode hard and put away wet and raising his eyebrows at Eddie, a smile creeping uncontrollably onto his face. Eddie had flushed and stubbornly looked away, pretending to shuffle bottles of beer around in the fridge.

“I’m calling the cops on you, El Bandito.”

“They fucked me around on my overtime,” Eddie muttered.

“Where, at every restaurant you’ve ever worked in? Dude, look at all this shit!”

A crack-fizz as Eddie popped the top on a beer and shut the fridge again, taking a sip and pointing the neck of the bottle at Richie. “Fuck you.”

“Petty larceny is so hot.”

Richie still remembers watching Eddie choke on his beer, can still feel the bottle cap bouncing off his nose where Eddie threw it at him. He still feels warm whenever he thinks about Eddie standing there, leaning against the counter, giggling obnoxiously like a little kid and looking at Richie with want shining in his eyes.

Life-changing shit, and Richie remembers it every single time he sets foot in this apartment.

He remembers, after that, how he had lounged back against the pillows on Eddie’s bed like it was a sofa because there hadn’t been anywhere else to sit, really, and watched Eddie pace and fidget and take too-long sips on his beer like he had no idea what else to do with his hands. 

“Soo… are you like… okay?”

“What? I’m fine.”

“Like if you want me to go, man, I’ll just… like, say the word, alright?”

“Why the fuck would I want you to go?”

“I don’t know, why the fuck are you pacing around like a death row convict!”

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t--”

“I’ve never had anyone here before, you’re the only one who’s ever--” He gestured wildly, and would have spilled his beer had he not already chugged so much of it. “You’re the only person I’ve ever done this with!”

“I’m the only person you’ve ever _done_ this with?? Dude--”

“That’s not what I said! That is not what I said--”

“Uh, that’s exactly what you said--”

“Fuck you, I’ve had sex before! _We’ve_ had sex before! I meant this, Rich, this, the you-in-my-personal-fucking-apartment thing, this--”

“Hey! Captain Panic! If you want me to go, I’ll go, I already said--”

“No, I don’t want you to fucking go, I want to make you breakfast!”

Richie sat there in the wake of that, trying very, very hard to bite back a smile and failing.

“Oh, shut up,” Eddie muttered.

“I like breakfast.”

“I hate you. I sincerely do not know why I do this to myself. Forget breakfast. Enjoy your airport bagel.”

“No way, Julia Child. I want the fancy flippy omelette you promised me. _Now the French call this dish ‘eggs a la over-complique’_ ,” he said, putting on his best Dan Aykroyd-as-the-French-Chef, the one that makes Eddie lose his ever-loving mind without fail.

Eddie choked mid-pull on his beer, face red and chest stuttering with reflexive giggles. “No, no, no, no fair, fuck you, I’m mad! I’m mad, you can’t do that when I’m--”

“ _Save the liver!_ ”

(Richie revels in making Eddie laugh; it stirs up something like a wild chant inside his heart, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES, giddy, surprised joy and accomplishment bubbling up in him like he’s gotten into heaven and found it full of bourbon fountains, blowjobs, and taquerias.)

“ _This phone is a prop_ ,” Eddie quoted back under his short breath, shying his face away to hide his smile. 

“Gotcha,” Richie said, grinning.

“Oh, fuck you.”

The slightly desperate sounding “God, yes please,” came spilling out of Richie’s mouth before he could think twice about it.

Eddie finally stopped pacing, eyes dark and wide, chest heaving beneath his t-shirt with some bizarre combination of laughter and anxious hyperventilation Richie’s never seen any other human being achieve.

“Yeah, okay.”

Eddie tipped back the end of his beer, throat exposed, hot, sexy, _goddamn_ , and then left Richie to suffer as he walked his ass all the way into the kitchen to rinse out the bottle and stash it in the recycling bin under the sink.

He’d made up for it by reaching behind his head and yanking his shirt off over it as he walked back to the bed.

“That’s illegal. That’s so hot, oh my god--”

And then all of a sudden Eddie had been clambering between Richie’s knees, all compact hundred-and-sixty-seven pounds of him, down to just his jeans, practically vibrating with energy and intent and wide-eyed, disbelieving want.

“Oh, fuck, Eddie,” Richie said, trying and failing to keep his eyes open at the heady feeling of Eddie’s body pressed all along his, Eddie’s breath on his cheek, little huffs of air from his nose as he worked his beer-cold lips along Richie’s jaw, rasping against his stubble.

Richie had laid a hand against the side of Eddie’s neck, behind his ear, and held on tight.

Richie’s glasses almost bent when Eddie eventually wrestled him onto his stomach, both of them flushed and hard and giggling with endorphins, and when Eddie dug out lube and a condom from his bedside table, Richie couldn’t help asking if he stole those from work, too, which earned him a smiling “You’re not fuckin’ funny,” muttered into the back of his shoulder.

And later, prone on his belly with Eddie braced over his back and fucking him enthusiastically and huffing warm, frantic breaths and “Fuck, oh, holy shit, Richie, you feel so good,” into the nape of his neck, Richie had felt like he was wrapped up in the world’s softest blanket, warm all over, cradled and held. Tucked away in the safety of Eddie’s apartment and Eddie’s arms. Distantly aware, somewhere in the haze of warmth and pleasure, that he was having the best, happiest sex of his life.

There’s something of _that_ memory in particular painted into the apartment, he thinks, scrawled all over the walls like a crazy person’s ravings in a prison cell, _happy--happy--happy_ ; he’s been happy here, and safe, and cared for, and the shabby little room feels like a fucking oasis for it.

Snapped out of his zone-out session by a siren wailing past the building outside, Richie realizes he’s probably dripping all over Eddie’s bed. The snow in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat has long since melted, and if he knows himself at all, he looks like a wet dog right now. He shakes his head like one and then goes to hunt up a towel in the bathroom cupboard.

He mops up whatever his boots dragged in and piles his bags in a corner because that seems slightly better than just leaving them heaped around the door.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he really, sincerely wishes he could stop Pavlov-dogging every time that happens, but he can’t help his hands shaking with excitement as he looks to see who’s texting him.

_Eddie_  
THIS BITCH

 _Eddie_  
sending your fucking pierogi back

 _Eddie_  
“My grandma makes them better” your grandma TAUGHT ME HOW TO MAKE THEM

 _Eddie_  
I’m literally WRITING THE BOOK ON IT

 _Eddie_  
Rich I’m gonna fucking lose it help

Richie’s hands are still shaking as he fires back a text, smiling. He can’t stop smiling. There’s nobody to see him, so he doesn’t really see much need to rein it in.

The idea of Eddie pausing during dinner service long enough to punch out texts to send him, complete with caps lock...

_Me_  
Aw babe its ok i know how much polish grandmas love you

 _Me_  
Its the dimples dude they cant resist

He pauses, pokes at the keys again in starts and fits, types a few words and deletes them again over and over.

_if i was there i--_

_want me to come and--_

_it’ll be ok eds i l--_

Stabbing the backspace button over and over again, he closes out of the messaging app altogether and throws the phone down on the bed, suddenly itching to get up and move, chest thrumming with all the things he wishes he had the balls to just _say_ , Jesus Christ--

He stands up so quickly his head swims.

One more second sitting here in the quiet by himself, waiting for his phone to buzz again when he knows it’s not going to, Eddie already back in the thick of it again for sure, is going to make him crazy.

He throws his wet coat back on and shoves his dormant phone back into his pocket.

There’s gotta be somewhere he can still pick them up some dinner, he reasons, having poked his head into Eddie’s cupboards and fridge a little earlier and found them single-career-woman-on-the-go bare. It’s fucking New York, something’s always open.

And if he remembers right, they’re short on something else important, so he’s just going to have to put his big boy pants on and stop for that, too.

He wishes he could think about anything else in the universe for a little while, but instead all he thinks about as he tackles the never-ending stairwell down to the street is Eddie telling him all about the times he’s bummed around Catholic church basements, charming all the Polack grandmas into spilling their pierogi-related state secrets with his good boy face and his hair neatly parted, Jehovah’s Witness-style, and Richie can see it all in his head down to the shy, put-on-polite smile on Eddie’s lips and the neurotic shine of his dark eyes.

\-----

The interior of the 24-hour Walgreens within walking distance is a fluorescently-lit whirlwind of made-in-China Christmas crap and piped-in Mariah Carey, the line of people waiting to check out stretched all the way back to the photo center. The weather outside has gotten so bad it makes Richie think giddily that he really ought to have _listened_ to Pa Ingalls when he said to tie himself to the house before going out to check on the barn. He stomps his feet on the rug by the automatic doors and shakes snow from his hair, giving his glasses a quick shine on his hoodie that ends up smudging them and making them harder to see out of than if he’d just left the water droplets alone.

He’s a hot mess, as usual, says his blurry reflection in one of the mirrors he passes by in the beauty aisle. He always feels so goddamn unkempt, too tall and too big and hair all over everything, never-ending stubble that he can’t shave off faster than it grows. He’d felt disgusting as a teenager and had truthfully never really grown out of it, as if everyone else had fucked off to charm school while he got held back in Remedial Grooming, snarking back at the teacher with the nasally drawl that he’s always hated and that, unfortunately, just happens to be the way his fucking voice comes out, no matter how many impressions and accents he practices.

So like, objectively, he knows there’s probably nobody staring at him as he lurches around the world’s busiest Walgreens, but he’s been feeling like Richie Tozier, Big Dirty Faggot, for twenty-some years at this point, and after so long it feels like a t-shirt he’s obligated to wear every single day. Like a uniform. Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ husband, this guy likes sex with men, no matter what his made-up act about his made-up girlfriend says.

He’s always hated purchasing anything the pharmacy keeps in the Personal Care aisle.

It feels naked. Like you might as well just crack the box and roll a rubber on right there in the middle of the store, because everyone already knows what you’re up to.

The stuff he says on stage, about sex, about women… It's the opposite of vulnerable. It’s a bunch of bullshit wrapped up in good-delivery paper with an expensive-blazer bow.

Carrying a box of Trojans through a crowded pharmacy on Christmas, on the other hand, is living your bare ass truth in front of a whole bunch of strangers. That dude in the Jets windbreaker over there? He knows what you’re doing tonight. So does that guy with the dreads and the three cartons of sale Ben & Jerry’s, and so does the Betty White looking lady picking out Spanx.

The thing is, back home, people always _knew_.

Back home, people wrote shit like “Richie Tozier sux flamer cock” and “Richie Tozier is a FAGGOT” on the wall of a bathroom stall before Richie ever got a chance to hold a boy’s hand (and Jesus, wasn’t that a fucking injustice, doing time for a crime you didn’t even get the fun of committing).

He feels like he can’t help the way he snags a box of Ultra-Thin Trojans and a bottle of Astroglide and darts back out of the aisle with his face burning and his head ducked down. 

Richie wonders about other dudes constantly, wonders where they find it in themselves to wear the rainbows, walk the walk. Wonders when it’s going to be his turn to stop being so goddamn scared.

Surely, a thirteen-year-old Richie had thought, when he’s twenty, things will be different. He’d thought the same thing at twenty about thirty. Thirty about forty.

And here he is, he thinks, forty and slinking into the checkout line behind the Jets jacket guy, oily, unpleasant shame sitting in his stomach like a greasy meal.

“Hey, aren’t you--” says the pasty teenager manning the register as he scans Richie out, waving the box of condoms around in a way that makes Richie’s heart stutter and clench.

“Nope. Never told a funny joke in my life,” Richie cuts him off. He snatches up his bag as soon as everything’s inside it and leaves without his receipt.

\----

Okay, he thinks, after he’s angrily shuffled three whole blocks through wet snow with no real goal in mind. Okay. So the hissy fit about having to buy condoms was probably a little unnecessary.

Stopping to collect himself in front of the dark windows of a closed bodega, he sucks in a nice deep breath, cold, damp air numbing the inside of his chest and sending him into a coughing fit like he just tried smoking up for the first time. He blinks back tears and smiles when he catches sight of himself in the window. Wild-haired, Yeti-esque with all the snow.

The thing is, Eddie’s into it, apparently.

On any given day, Richie feels about as sexy as the Grinch, and _yet_.

And yet.

A month ago, he came to visit Eddie at work and the dude took time on a busy Friday to send him out hand-cut fucking sweet potato fries at the bar, flecked red with hot paprika and slathered in honey and butter, five-hundred-percent _not_ on the menu, just because he knows they’re Richie’s favorite.

Eddie sits across from him when they go out, stares at him over fragrant, coconutty bowls of green curry, over butter chicken and biryani, over five-hundred dollar tasting menus, over chocolate shakes and the biggest possible order of McNuggets. Stares at him like he did that first time he sat across from Richie in his own restaurant. Laughs at Richie’s jokes and calls him a slob when he drips sauce down his shirt, nudges him in the shins, kicks him under the table like it makes up for the fact that they don’t hold hands in public.

Richie’s got Eddie’s shirtless pictures buried deep inside his phone; he’s got text messages saved that are Eddie saying how much he wants to be buried deep inside of _him_.

Maybe most damning of all, he borrowed Eddie’s phone once to google something and found himself staring at his own photograph set as the wallpaper, one Eddie took of him when they went to the Fulton Fish Market in the dead late heat of September and Eddie dared him to hug a fifty-pound Atlantic salmon.

_”Hug the fuckin’ fish, Rich, don’t be a pussy.”_

The picture’s a little blurry. They were both laughing so hard neither of them could keep still, Richie trying to mug for the camera with his arms full of slippery fish and Eddie behind his phone camera trying and failing to hold it steady.

Eddie’s response to being caught with Richie as his background? A shrug, sheepish but unapologetic.

And it’s not that Richie doesn’t _see_ this shit. He’s not blind, or some sort of emotional idiot, he’s just…

Man, he’s just scared.

He’s not sure he deserves all the space Eddie is giving him to sort it out. Eddie, who is brave as fuck, who is a special kind of weirdo who sits chilled out in the subway while explaining to Richie all the ways they could potentially catch a communicable disease and/or die in the subway.

It feels like Eddie’s presence in his life is one big dare. Hug the fish, Rich.

Sighing, he pulls out his phone with numb fingers and stands there browsing Yelp and shivering for a minute before deciding on a Vietnamese joint nearby that has good reviews and terrible decor. Their kind of place.

He orders them pho to take out, gets his basic-bitch-boring with just the thin-sliced steak, gets Eddie’s fully loaded up with all the offal and scraps and blood balls.

Eddie loves all that shit, lard and brains and kidneys and livers, like some Depression baby old man even though he was born in 1976 and grew up on Wonder Bread and rice cakes.

Richie wonders sometimes if it’s not just yet another way for Eddie to tell the world he’s not afraid of it.

\----

The sound of his phone buzzing next to his ear wakes him up from a dead sleep on top of Eddie’s bed a few hours later. He’s running hot, disoriented and blinking muzzily, classic symptoms of having dozed off with the lights and his glasses still on. Perfect, he thinks, agitated. He’ll be all nice and sweaty when Eddie comes home freshly showered from work.

Fuck it all, he hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

His phone is still buzzing, and he reaches for it blearily, thumbing at the screen.

“Yo,” he says hoarsely into the phone.

“ _Richie_ ,” Eddie hisses.

“Eds?” Richie says, brightening. “Hey, you finally--”

“Richie, listen, all the lights in my _fucking_ apartment are on.”

“Uh…” Oh, no.

“I’m fucking serious, Rich, I just got home and I’m down on the street and my windows are all lit the fuck up-- _I didn’t leave the lights on_.”

Jesus Christ. He kicks himself in the ass, mentally. Well done, brain trust. Terrific fucking job.

“Richie, what the fuck do I do?”

Eddie sounds frantic, and Richie can’t listen to him scared. It’s making his chest ache.

“Okay, listen,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath. “Don’t be mad.” Please, please don’t be mad.

“What-- Rich, are you even listening-- I am too fucking tired to be dealing with a home invasion right now, this is so fucked, I swear to God if I have to ruin one of my knives _stabbing a burglar-- On Christmas--_ ”

Richie swallows hard and walks over to the window while Eddie freaks out into the phone. He scrubs at the fog on one of the panes with the sleeve of his hoodie.

There’s Eddie, seven floors away, standing out in the snowy street by the driver’s side door of his Cadillac sedan. Eddie loves that fucking car. It’s a manual. He drives it like a total maniac. He looks the same behind the wheel of his car as he does in the kitchen: confident, ballsy, dialed-in. None of the anxious tension that keeps him looking so nervous and wary most of the time.

Eddie looks the same way when they’re in bed together and sometimes, it feels almost like Richie could be a car or a kitchen, or, you know… something else Eddie really l-- likes.

Right now, though, Eddie’s standing down by his car, wool coat open over one of the white t-shirts he practically lives in, with his phone at his ear, his knife roll slung over one shoulder, and snowflakes melting in his neat hair, and Richie raises his free hand and wiggles his fingers in a tentative, dopey wave.

He’s so nervous he might throw up, but finally seeing Eddie? Even an Eddie who might be really fucking annoyed with him? All it really feels like is warm.

Hey, baby, he thinks.

Eddie must recognize that it’s him standing there in the window, because the call disconnects and Eddie’s arm falls to his side. His expression is pretty impossible to make out from so far away, but Richie thinks he can picture it anyway. Nervy, wide-eyed. Eddie’s resting anxiety face. Richie watches him wade through the now-ankle-deep snow around his car and disappear from view as he gets close to the building.

Okay. Okay, don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. It takes like a minute to get up all those stairs, so he has a second to think. Think-slash-panic.

So he fucked up, maybe. So what? People fuck up. Richie fucks everything up, all the time. He exists in a state of perma-fuck-up, and it’s never stopped him before. He _embraces_ being a fuck-up, publicly, for money.

This is different, though, this is _Eddie_ , who Richie l-- yeah, he might throw up. Oh, god.

He walks away from the window and goes to stand dumbly in the middle of the room instead, stomach churning. He’s sweating like a fucking pig, he’s gonna need a shower before Eddie is even going to want to be in the same room as him.

Begging might be the way to go, just drop right down onto his sore old man knees and apologize, maybe crack some jokes until he gets Eddie to do that fucking giggle--

Eddie flies through the door and shoves it closed behind him before Richie can finish any of his scattered thoughts. He stands there, chest heaving, eyes wide, and all Richie can think to say is, “Dude, did you _run_ up here--”

There’s a thump as the knife roll hits the bed and then Richie finds himself staggering back with his arms full of damp, cold Eddie.

The relief that washes over him the second his face is nudged into Eddie’s wet hair feels like sticking his head under a hot shower. Everything in him melts. Eddie’s arms are tight around his waist and Eddie’s head is pressing right against his heart, and Richie catches him up in his arms and squeezes him so tight he wonders if he’s not hurting him a little. Eddie’s lungs still sound like they’re working overtime inside his chest when he tries to talk.

“How the fuck are you here right now, how the fuck are you-- I can’t believe--”

Eddie cuts himself off with an unintelligible distressed sound, muffled by Richie’s sweatshirt.

“Surprise,” Richie says weakly, nuzzling the side of his jaw against the top of Eddie’s head, his heart still kicking with nerves.

“Fuck you so much,” Eddie mumbles, but the way his arms tighten around Richie’s waist says everything Richie’s been dying to hear.

I want you here, it says. I’m glad you came.

The words seem easier, all of a sudden.

“I missed you,” he says into Eddie’s hair, breathing in the scent of his pomade and the shower gel he keeps at work, the one that smells like pine trees. He smoothes a hand up Eddie’s lean back and cups the base of his skull gently. “Eds, babe, I missed you like crazy.” And he’s never been shy about talking, he’s always been able to find something smart to say, but being honest? Exposing his belly? He can hardly believe the words that just came out of his own mouth.

Eddie starts to pull away a little and Richie’s nerves flare up again, but he doesn’t leave the circle of Richie’s arms. He just eases back enough that they can look each other in the eye, letting go of Richie’s waist and working his hands into the fabric on either side of the zipper on Richie’s sweatshirt instead.

Two new bandaids on his hands, Richie counts. An angry red burn peeking out from the sleeve of his coat. The sometimes-blister-sometimes-callous where his knife rubs against the base of his right index finger open and oozing a little. He looks like a raccoon, the circles under his eyes are so dark, but his expression is bright. Soft.

Richie is choosing not to think about what his own face looks like right now. Sleep-scruffy and devoted, probably. Fucking Rin-Tin-Tin or something. He can’t help it; he’s in love, even though there’s no fucking way he’s going to say _that_ out loud.

Instead, he looks Eddie dead in the eyes and says, “No, seriously, I missed you. You ruined me for porn, man. I’m dying.”

“Yeah?” Eddie says earnestly, gaze not faltering. “How’s that work, is it like the bank? Someone from Pornhub calls you from an eight-hundred number to make sure you’re not dead on your kitchen floor with the cat chewing your face?” Richie chuckles quietly as Eddie continues, putting on a dumb voice. “ _This degenerate hasn’t watched a barebacking video in weeks, we’re very concerned_. They probably flagged your account for suspicious activity.”

“Can’t be helped, buddy. I gave it the old college try but my cock’s just like, you know what, actually, I _Can_ Believe It’s Not Eddie.”

“That is so sweet.”

Richie grins and then decides he can’t help himself anymore and ducks his head down to kiss him, pressing in, finding Eddie’s lips chapped and his cheeks still a little cold. He means to make it a goofy, quick smooch, but Eddie tugs him in by the sweatshirt and turns it into something real, mouth firm against Richie’s, warm and intent.

There’s energy behind everything Eddie does; he’s never still for long, and Eddie kissing is no exception to the rule. He spends time on Richie’s top lip, moves on to the bottom one, caressing him with determined little movements, like he has some sort of plan.

It gives Richie the world’s best headrush, without fail.

Eddie breaks off suddenly, panting warm, minty breath into the space between them. “I have to call in the order later, do not let me forget. Do not. Let me forget, Rich. Do not.”

“Promise, baby,” Richie says, distracted.

Eddie kisses him again, harder this time, and Richie melts into it, tightening his arms around Eddie’s wiry back.

Eddie breaks off again. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He’s fidgeting; he’s almost bouncing up and down on his toes. “My big plans for tonight were like, get across the bridge in one piece, put my feet up, drink some fuckin’ wine. My Christmas expectations were _pathetically_ low.”

“Dude, you don’t own any fucking wine. I was meaning to bring that up, like… what the fuck is with the Great Depression cupboards, Eds?”

“Guess it has been a while since I got to the store.”

Richie grins down at him, teasing, admiring the furrow in Eddie’s brow that says he’s standing there actually trying to remember when the last time he grocery shopped was. “No kidding. You keep this up, I’m staging an intervention. Getting your ass down to a church for some Workaholics Anonymous meetings. I’ll sponsor you, babe, don’t worry. I’ve never worked a day in my life.” 

“Don’t sell yourself short, Rich,” Eddie says. The sarcasm in his tone is just a little less potent for how his breath catches when Richie ducks in and kisses his forehead softly. “You’ve got a full-time job being completely unfunny.”

“Oh, _ouch_ ,” Richie croons, delighted. “That was a second-degree burn, at least. I need some ice, Eds.”

“You don’t put ice on a burn, dickhead, that’s how people get permanent tissue damage.”

“I’ve got some tissue you can damage, hot stuff.”

Eddie looks him right in the eyes and says, with a truly impressive dose of faux-sincerity, “I think I would have preferred a home invasion.”

Richie grins even harder, leaning down. “You’re so mean,” he murmurs against Eddie’s lips.

Eddie turns his head away as he’s overtaken by a truly massive yawn.

“Oh my god, that’s adorable. I feel like I’m watching a YouTube video, you’re like a little puppy that needs a nap.”

“F-uck y-ou,” Eddie manages, swaying on his feet a little.

Richie draws him back into a hug, unable to help himself, Eddie’s head nestling just so into his chest, the top of his head conveniently accessible to Richie’s mouth. He kisses it, mouths at his hair a little, which makes Eddie squirm adorably. “You hungry, dude?”

“There’s food?” Eddie perks up.

“I’m wise to your tricks, amigo, I know you’ve been running on coffee and like three stone-cold bites of the staff meal all day.”

“Fuck you, I had breakfast. I had a bagel.”

“Sixteen hours ago?”

“Shut up.” Eddie extricates himself from Richie’s arms finally and wanders into the kitchen, still wearing his coat. “What’d you get? It smells like pho-- oh shit, you did get pho? I fuckin’ love you, I’m so hungry…”

Richie feels like he might be stroking out. Context, he screams at himself in his head, context, check the motherfucking context, he was just talking, it’s just a fucking thing people say, you pathetic--

“Oh, sweet, spring rolls too, Rich, you’re the best.”

Hngh.

He sucks in a deep breath and calls back, barely finding his voice. “Your soup’s the one with the entrails, you little savage.”

“Wuss.”

He can hear the grin in Eddie’s voice from all the way out in the main room.

\----

“--And it’s burnt onions, in the stock. You just fuckin’, like, cut ‘em in half and oil them and stick ‘em under the sally until they almost ignite and then you make the beef stock with them in it, that’s why pho tastes like pho. Well, sort of. There’s like star anise and cinnamon and clove and shit too, but.”

Richie can feel Eddie’s jaw working a mile a minute against his shoulder, between slurping down bites of noodle and chattering away, hopping new trains of thought like an especially agile hobo.

“--And oxtail is like, super delicious and really fun to work with. You have to cook the piss out of it but, honestly, all the best proteins you gotta cook the piss out of--”

“--Tried using beet juice to stain the dough but that shit came out like, _Barney purple_ , man, I had to throw the whole batch out, I am not serving Barney-colored dumplings, not happening--”

“--Wanna take you for Turkish coffee sometime, talk about _wired_ , who needs coke--”

“--Is it ethical for them to be marketing all this fucked up medication and shit to old people? It’s not, right? All these commercials are just fuckin’ scare tactics, right? _How_ is this legal, Rich--”

He’s slumped all against Richie’s side where they’re sitting up in bed, stripped down to boxer briefs and his t-shirt, balancing his bowl against his chest as he shovels noodles and bean sprouts and the ugly bits of the cow into his mouth. One leg is slung over Richie’s also-bare thighs. It’s devastatingly comfortable, Eddie’s fuzzy leg heavy over his own under the comforter, a not-very-Christmassy _Murder, She Wrote_ marathon they found on one of the antennae channels rolling in the background on Eddie’s small TV.

Personal space is overrated, Richie decides.

Even though, noodles being noodles and soup being soup, he’s getting something like a broth shower as Eddie demolishes his food.

“Hey. Splashy,” he says, looking down at the top of Eddie’s head.

“What?” Eddie says, mouth full, oblivious.

“Nevermind.”

\----

“How the fuck are there this many murders in Cabot Cove? There’s like ten people living there. I don’t buy it.” Eddie grumbles. He shoves himself, somehow, even tighter against Richie’s side, one hand bunched in Richie’s t-shirt, his dinner long since finished.

“Dude, right? Do you remember Maine being this murdery when we were kids?”

“...Well…”

“Okay, no, I just heard myself say that. You’re right.”

“Jesus, maybe that’s why my mother never let me play outside…”

Richie snorts and, not thinking, says, “The way you tell it, buddy, your mother never let you play outside because she was an overbearing nightmare who tried to get you fired from your first dishwashing job because she was convinced you were gonna get tetanus and die.”

The silence that follows, broken only by the _Murder, She Wrote_ theme as yet another episode starts, has Richie panicky in seconds.

They don’t talk about Eddie’s mom much. Richie knows the bare minimum, pieced together from whatever scraps of his childhood Eddie’s ever mentioned off-hand in his presence. He knows she had him in and out of the doctor so often he barely got by in school for missing so much class. He knows she really did call his first boss and try to get him fired under the pretense that he was too sickly to handle the work. He knows she’s dead now.

He doesn’t know how Eddie feels about that.

Other things, he infers. Richie is a lot of things, but he’s not actually all that stupid. He can guess at reasons why Eddie refuses to take so much as an Advil no matter how bad he’s hurting, for example. Or why Eddie has what might be the world’s most fraught relationship with his inhaler.

He doesn’t _need_ Eddie to drag that all out for him.

Just the same as Eddie never brings up the fact that Richie is still about as deep in the closet as the shoebox full of porn Richie had when he was 16.

He’s just not in a talking-about-complexes place with Eddie, yet. Because like, what they’re doing is totally casual, right? Low-stakes, something to fill up the quiet hours between both of their respective careers. But also, Richie thinks if Eddie ever decided he didn’t want to do this anymore, it would ruin him completely, and giving Eddie the full E! True Hollywood Story rundown of all the messed up stuff about him feels like asking for things to go south faster than a flock of geese in October. It’s terrifying, frankly.

It’s not until Eddie’s turning himself around and flopping down with his back across Richie’s lap that he realizes with a wave of relief that Eddie was only so quiet because he was yawning again. Richie looks down at him, fighting a yawn himself as he watches Eddie finish his up, blinking up at him with his gigantic brown eyes and scratching his stomach where his t-shirt is riding up.

“She told him I had fuckin’ epilepsy, can you believe that?” Eddie says, and he’s smiling about it. “Like Ma I’m pretty sure they can’t fire people for having epilepsy, but nice try. Way to get creative.”

Richie laughs. Eddie’s warm and soft across his thighs, tangled in the comforter, fuzzy around the edges and slightly crazed around the eyes from lack of sleep.

Eddie reaches up and snags Richie’s glasses, settling them onto his own face.

“Excuse me? I need those.”

“Jesus, Rich, no wonder you’re always getting headaches. Your glasses don’t fucking work.”

Nevermind, Richie thinks. You’re not scary at all. Muscle-twink-competent? Muscle-twink- _dork_.

Giggling, Eddie takes the glasses off and carefully reaches up with both hands to put them back onto Richie’s face, a gesture that makes Richie’s heart do something funny, straightening them gently before letting his hands settle back down over his own stomach.

He yawns again.

“You have gotta get some sleep, dude,” Richie says, thumbing one of the circles under Eddie’s eyes. “You look like you’re auditioning to play one of Pocahontas’s animal companions.”

“I’m not tired. I’m watching _Murder, She Wrote_.”

“Come on. Beddie for Eddie.”

“I’m not fucking tired, man.”

“Pretty sure you’ve reached the magical land of Overtired at this point.”

“Do they have like a coffee waterfall there? Is the river made of Red Bull?”

“Santa is _so_ not gonna come if you don’t go to sleep.”

“Fuck that asshole. I asked for a bike when I was six and he brought me Candyland.”

“Ooh, but Queen Frostine was such a major hottie, Eds.”

“Mm, not really my type.” Eddie yawns, _again_. Richie looks at him laying there across his lap and can’t help tucking an arm around his neck and shoulders, tugging him in against his stomach. Eddie goes along with it happily, nuzzling his head into the hem of Richie’s t-shirt.

If you had asked Richie when they first met if he thought that guy in the James Beard photos on Google, with the crispy white coat and the tense expression and the tattoos, was secretly this cuddly, weird little _mogwai_ -esque dweeb when you got him out of the restaurant for a minute, well…

But then Richie’s not really Big-Time Comedian Richie Tozier, either, is he? Not when they’re like this. Not when it’s just them.

He works his free hand up under Eddie’s t-shirt, stroking flat-palmed over the planes of his lean chest, forever delighted at the way Eddie leans into his touch.

“I was always more of a Gloppy guy,” Eddie continues seriously, eyes shut, lips doing that thing where he’s trying to hide a smile and failing.

Richie tweaks one of his nipples, hard, in retribution.

“Ow, fuck off,” Eddie whines, but the way he’s biting his lip and the pink flush creeping up his neck says something different.

Richie grins. “You sure you’re not tired, killer?”

“I’m awake,” Eddie says, squirming, exhaling sharply as Richie rucks up his t-shirt and tweaks the same nipple again. “Fuck.”

Richie’s already getting hard somewhere beneath the comforter and Eddie’s back, the best kind of hard: dreamy, full-bodied, warm and non-urgent. He strokes his palm over Eddie’s chest again, over his heart, over the poppies and rye grass outlined in heavy black all down his ribs, the traditional script centered on his chest that says TAKE YOUR MEDICINE. The fuzzy, sensitive skin of Eddie’s unfairly cut stomach twitches and jumps when he touches it.

He plays with the waistband of Eddie’s underwear, gives it a snap, ghosts his hand down further over the front of them.

Eddie shoves his still-soft package against his hand when he gets there.

“Yeah?” Richie asks, smiling.

“Yeah,” Eddie huffs.

“You want me to get you off? I’ll get you off, babe.”

“Maybe stop talking about it and fuckin’ do it, then-- hah.”

Richie smiles harder as he cups him through his underwear, stroking his thumb down the length of him, still working its way up to hard.

Richie’s already there, underneath the comforter. Beautifully hard, blood singing under his skin like he just downed three shots of good booze. God, he missed him so much.

“You like it when I talk about it.” He strokes him with his thumb again, firmer this time. “Fuck, Eddie, you’re gonna sleep like a baby after this.”

Eddie bucks up into his hand.

“I know, I know. Want you to feel so good, Eds, you worked so hard today-- oh, there you are.”

He wraps his whole hand around him through his underwear, now, squeezing gently, stroking up and down.

“Ngh,” Eddie whines.

Richie pulls him in closer. He’s practically cradling him in his lap. “I love how your cock feels in my hand, man. You don’t even know what you do to me.”

Eddie starts tugging frantically on his own underwear and Richie grins, helping him off with them, watching Eddie’s cock bounce free onto his stomach and feeling almost light-headed with want. Adoration.

And okay, so maybe Richie doesn’t exactly excel at the talking-about-things part of being in a relationship, and maybe it’s hard for him to be serious sometimes, and maybe he’s gonna fuck this all up in the end because of that, but this? This is where he’s good. This is where he _knows_ he’s good. This is where he knows how to love Eddie the way he knows he loves Eddie deep down underneath all the fear and the talking himself out of it.

He takes up Eddie’s cock again and rubs gently at the head, fluid seeping out onto the pad of his thumb, and when Eddie shivers and groans he can’t help but match it with a groan of his own.

“Fuck, look at you-- You’re so hard, babe, does that feel good? Feels like you want to be touched so bad, doesn’t it? So hard like that?”

He doesn’t even know where this shit comes from, when he’s talking.

“Hang on,” he says, bending uncomfortably far at the middle to kiss Eddie’s temple before stretching to reach the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.

Incredibly brave Walgreen’s excursion, come _through._

Popping the top on the bottle with his thumb, he lets it drizzle down onto Eddie, catching his head, his shaft, making a little pool on his stomach. He makes sure to let a little bit drip down onto his balls, because he _knows_ that feels good, and Eddie confirms that with a sharp huff of breath and a pained-looking smile, watching the proceedings with wide eyes, head still nestled in the crook of Richie’s elbow.

Richie wraps his hand around his cock again and gives him a long, slow stroke.

“Oh-fuck-Richie--” Eddie gasps, all one breath.

He gets into it for real, setting a rhythm, the wet sound of his hand working tight around Eddie making his own mouth go dry with want. The head of Eddie’s cock flashes red and hard and glistening inside his fist with every downstroke.

Eddie slams his eyes shut.

“Yeah,” Richie says, staring at his hand on Eddie’s cock. “Fuck, Eddie, that’s so hot. Holy shit. I’m gonna come in my shorts just watching you.”

He might. He’s so hard and keyed up and turned the fuck on even the friction of his own clothes, the weight of the blanket and Eddie’s back over his lap, that’s enough that it’s got him close.

He keeps up his even, tight strokes. Eddie’s eyes are still shut and he’s panting hard, hips twitching like he can barely control them.

“ _Hah_ -ngh, Richie, right there--”

Say my name again, Richie thinks, head buzzing with arousal as he speeds up his hand, Eddie’s cock straining hard inside his fist, still red, so wet Richie can’t tell where the lube ends and the pre-come begins-- he rucks up Eddie’s t-shirt even further with his other hand, clutching at his chest and drawing him tight into the crook of his arm, come on, Eddie, come _on_ , I wanna see it--

“Oh,” Eddie says, like he’s surprised by something. “Oh, fuck, oh, Jesus, don’t stop--” Like Richie would ever stop with Eddie frantic, squirming in his arms, so close to coming, cock swollen and leaking. Richie’s handjob game is strong, he could do this for _hours_ , but he’s not going to have to.

“Yeah, buddy,” Richie says, smiling, breathing so hard he’s nearly matching the desperate rise and fall of Eddie’s lean chest as he chases his orgasm. “Fuck, Eddie, come on.” He speeds up again, moving his fist as fast as he can, short strokes tight around the top half of Eddie’s dick, transfixed, waiting, watching for it hungrily--

Eddie finally tips over the edge with a choked sound and a first, beautiful spurt of come onto his own chest.

“Oh my god,” Richie whines, slowing up just a little, working him through it, loving every twitch of Eddie’s cock in his hand as he comes all over himself, all over Richie’s arm where it’s holding him across the chest.

He might come himself, he’s _right-- there_ \--

Eddie huffs and shivers, one last little bit of come oozing from the tip of his still-red cock. Richie swipes his thumb through it and groans, unable to help himself.

“Eds, you’re gonna kill me. That was so hot, oh my god.”

Blinking his eyes open finally, Eddie looks up at him with what might be the warmest, fondest, impossible look Richie’s ever gotten from anyone, ever, and says, breathless, “If I kill you, it’s gonna be because you keep calling me ‘buddy’ when we’re fucking.”

Richie laughs. “Can’t help it, pal. You just bring something out in me.”

“Shut up, oh my god, I just came so hard I saw Jesus and I’m already annoyed again.”

“What a testimonial.”

Eddie giggles and then seems to realize something, looking up at him seriously. “Did you finish?”

Richie looks down at him and smiles softly. “I’m good, dude.”

“You’re good? What the fuck does that mean, you’re not good, come here--” Eddie tries to sit up but Richie tightens his arm around his chest and leans down to nuzzle against his hair. He smells like sweat and sex. And a little bit like deep fryer, which is a smell that lingers on him no matter how many showers he takes.

“I’m good. Seriously.”

He is good. He didn’t finish but he feels like he’s had some sort of emotional orgasm. Clear-headed and full of light. Jesus, he’s _happy_.

“Catch me in the morning,” he says at Eddie’s annoyed expression. “You came enough for both of us, anyway, look at yourself. You’re a sploogy mess.”

“It’s not that much. Is it?”

“I’ve seen bukkake videos with less come.”

“Well, if it _bothers_ you so much, clean it up.”

“I can’t believe it’s not bothering _you_. You’re like, the worst germaphobe ever.”

Eddie snorts, face still flushed red as he turns and buries it into the soft part of Richie’s stomach, breath warm through Richie’s t-shirt. “I got better,” he says, muffled. There’s a giggly Monty Python accent in there somewhere.

Richie laughs and wraps a hand around the back of Eddie’s skull, ruffling his already-messy sex hair fondly. “Put your underwear back on and I’ll go get a bar mop for you, dirty boy.”

Eddie must be getting really tired at this point, because he shuffles his way off the bed and does like Richie suggested without any argument (after clambering up Richie’s front to collect a few long, gentle kisses first, both of them sleepy and fuzzy with three AM stubble). A few minutes later, they’re all cleaned up, Eddie’s dick tucked back into a clean pair of boxer briefs, and Richie settles back into the pillows with Eddie sprawled over his chest, arms around Richie’s ribs under the pretense of holding Richie when really what’s happening is that Richie is holding him again, secure in the crook of his right arm, stroking his back softly over his t-shirt.

The late-night antenna TV is still rolling and Richie lays there contentedly, half-dozing, working his way through a blurry, glasses-free Christmas special _Murder, She Wrote_ and the _Little House_ holiday special that always makes him cry where Laura sells her pony to buy Ma a new stove.

He’s just about hitting his limit on corny old TV and thinking about looking for something on Netflix instead when Eddie snuffles suddenly and pushes up from Richie’s chest, blinking awake, eyes gleaming crazily in the TV light.

“Eddie, what the fuck--”

“List,” he mumbles, casting out an arm towards the bedside table. “List, where’s my… clipboard, phone--”

“Babe--”

“Order, I didn’t call in the--”

“Eds--”

“Will you turn the fucking light on please, I can’t see shit--”

Richie wrestles him back down against his chest, finding Eddie significantly less difficult than usual to pin down half-asleep and exhausted. “Hey. Hey! Babe, you are _closed_ tomorrow, you don’t need any produce, please stop being crazy and go the fuck to sleep already, holy shit, it’s like four in the morning.”

It takes a second for Richie’s words to sink in.

“Oh,” Eddie says dumbly, then melts back into Richie’s chest.

Richie takes up stroking his back again, Eddie staring at him from somewhere down near his sternum, eyes wide with residual anxiety.

Swallowing, Richie turns some words over in his head.

“Please don’t, like, take this the wrong way or anything, okay, but-- And I’m not like, trying to tell you how to live your life or some shit, but like. I worry about you, man. You’re gonna like, burn out, you know, you’re not a machine, people need like… more than two days off in a month.”

His voice hangs there in the dark and his stomach jumps with nerves, alarm bells going off in his head like _don’t overstep, don’t overstep_ , but Eddie just keeps blinking up at him from his chest, breathing slowly like he might finally be about to fall asleep for real.

“I’ll take tomorrow off,” he concedes.

Richie laughs quietly. “That’s so considerate of you.”

“I know.” Eddie shuts his eyes, tightening his arms around Richie’s ribs. “Love you, Rich,” he breathes.

Richie _stops_ breathing.

Oh, you little bastard, he thinks, staring at Eddie’s now-one-hundred-percent-dead-asleep face. He looks innocent, soft, the lines on his forehead all ironed out.

Richie thought this would be scarier, honestly, when it finally happened. But then he thinks maybe that’s why it’s not so scary. He already knew it was coming, even if he wasn’t sure exactly when.

Eddie’s been there for a while, he realizes, jogging ahead of Richie, stopping, turning around, waiting for him to catch up. Egging him on.

He knows Eddie deserves better than his fear.

Tomorrow, they might stay in bed late or they might get up, might make breakfast at lunch time or might just have coffee and fuck instead, finally get up and shower afterward and head out into the city, find something for their own little take on Christmas dinner. Knowing Eddie, a crispy orange Peking duck from some Chinese place. Maybe it’ll be a wine kind of night, or maybe a twelve-pack is going to sound better, or maybe Eddie will be taken with one of his crazy gotta-cook-something-right-now fits and they’ll end up with some eggnog from scratch. They have fun in the kitchen together, even if it makes Richie a little nuts that Eddie refuses to measure anything, ever, and even a plebe like Richie knows you’re not supposed to just guesstimate the baking powder. Movies after that, maybe. Maybe pretending to watch movies and actually just having some nice festive sex instead, Richie really won’t mind either way.

He doesn’t know if he’s there yet, but he thinks he might be there soon. ‘There’ feels like it’s shaped like Eddie snoring gently into his chest, heavy and warm and real inside his arms.

If this was a movie, he’d say it now. Whisper it right at Eddie’s sleeping head, like it’s suddenly the easiest thing in the world.

It’s not. He doesn’t.

He thinks it, instead, nice and loud, reaching a hand out to stroke Eddie’s hair back from his forehead where it's starting to curl out of place. He thinks it and thinks it until he’s so tired he starts to follow Eddie under.

He’s still scared, but he thinks he might be starting to close the gap.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at oxfordlunch!


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